1 Kings 9:18

18. Baalath Probably identical with the town of this name in the tribe of Dan. Joshua 19:44. Some have supposed it to be the same as Baalbek in Coele-Syria, whose splendid ruins are still the wonder of the modern traveller.

Tadmor Such is the name in the margin of the Hebrew Bible, ( keri,) and in 2 Chronicles 8:4; but in the Hebrew text of this verse it is Tamar, which seems to have been the original name, and means a palm tree. The place probably received this name from the many palm trees which were planted within and around it, and hence the later Greek and Roman name Palmyra, city of palms. The site of this celebrated city was a fertile oasis in the great Syrian desert, midway between the Euphrates and Palestine, and served as a most important watering-station for the caravans which carried on commerce between the Western nations and those of the far East. Its importance to commerce was, perhaps, suggested to Solomon by Phenician merchants, and his ready practical wisdom would not be slow to secure to his own dominion the advantage of such a control over the traffic between the East and the West as this central emporium would naturally give him. It was probably at first strongly built, and so garrisoned as to give protection and security to the caravans against the tribes of lawless Arabs which then, as now, infested those deserts, and exposed all travel and commerce in great danger and inconvenience. But the city soon rose to magnificence and luxury, and became a city of merchants, who monopolized the trade between the East and the West, buying up the products of Arabia and India and selling them again to the Western traders. Tadmor, probably soon after the death of Solomon, passed from the possession of the Hebrews to that of the Assyrians. It is not mentioned again in Scripture; but from other sources we learn that it passed through various fortunes under the Eastern kings, the Roman emperors, the Mohammedan khalifs, and was at last plundered and laid waste by the Mongol conqueror, Tamerlane. Its ruins were long unknown to Europeans, but were discovered towards the close of the seventeenth century. They occupy a sandy plain, slightly elevated above the surrounding desert, and consist of “scattered groups of columns and single monumental pillars, while everywhere the ground is thickly strewn with broken shafts, and great shapeless piles of ruins, all white and glistering in the bright sunlight. Like bleached bones on a long-neglected battle-field those ruins lie, lonely and forsaken.” PORTER, Giant Cities of Bashan.

In the wilderness In the great Syrian desert between Palestine and the Euphrates.

In the land The land of Solomon’s dominion. The phrase is to be construed with built in 1 Kings 9:17. Solomon built in his land the cities here named.